HI, IM CLAIRE

As a student, I like to think of myself as the master of a balancing act. I love cooking and eating healthy foods, but sometimes I only have enough time to grab something quick. And sometimes that something is a cheeseburger. As for exercise, I love the way I look and feel after a good work out, but if all of my friends are in my apartment watching The Bachelor, I might be more inclined to stay home and do that as opposed to wiping the stinging sweat out of my eyes at boot camp.

That’s why I’m here. I want to impart my ideas about how to balance food and fitness in a realistic and attainable way in order to achieve health. I don’t like diets, so don’t come here expecting to find one. But, if you’re here looking for a practical way to look at health and fitness from the perspective of a college student (or maybe just a very busy person), then I might have just the thing for you.

Category Archives: Food

If I were to sum up my personal nutrition philosophy slash strategy, it’d be “high volume, low calorie”.

I really don’t like feeling hungry. And, if we’re being honest here, other people probably don’t like me when I’m hungry either. I can get a little ramotional. That’s why I like to get the most bang (satiation) for my buck (calories). It’s what helps me stay slender and maintains my friendships.

Unfortunately, this pursuit of satiety doesn’t often leave much room in my diet for fats, healthy or otherwise. If you don’t understand why this is, let’s do a real quick Nutrition 101. Think about a nutrition label. You’ll see the weighted amount of each macronutrient (carbohydrate, protein, fat) that each serving of said food provides. Well, these macronutrients are what give you energy, aka calories. One reason they’re measured in grams is because we have a defined calorie per gram value for these macros. Carbs and protein both provide 4 calories per gram. Fat, on the other hand, provides 9 calories per gram. This means that fat is the most energy dense macronutrient. In other words, a gram of bread will have fewer calories than a gram of oil.

As I travel further from the calorie-focused bandwagon, though, I am able to think about dietary fat with a clearer head. First of all, I like healthy fat. I like nuts and avocado and, given this recipe, salmon. Second of all, I know how good fat is for me. Third of all, fat is slow to digest within your body. In other words, it keeps you fuller for longer. You know those are magic words to me.

At this point it’s probably pretty easy for you to understand why I’m making a concerted effort to incorporate more of these healthy, yummy fats in my diet. Case in point, this Simple Slender Salmon Burger. How did I make this recipe even more stupidly simple than it already is? I purchased a 6 ounce piece of fish, baked it in the oven on Monday night, ate the first 3 ounces that night and saved the rest for this burger. Click here to watch/hear a video tutorial recipe or continue reading.

Part of being a (future) dietitian and/or food blogger is accepting the fact that people are going to tell you what they’ve eaten all the time. I can’t even tell you the number of times I’ve received an unsolicited 24-hour food recall from a complete stranger in a social setting– i.e. weddings, bars, etc.After putting some thought into what motivates people to do this, I’ve come to the conclusion that riddling off one’s daily diet to someone that’s knowledgable in nutrition must be comparable to confessing in church or receiving a free therapy session.

Most of the time, I don’t get much out of these conversations. Don’t get me wrong, I love talking about food and nutrition, but usually I can only respond with a nodding head or some form of empathy or reassurance. Recently, though, I was on the phone with my grandmother (hi Grandma!!!) and she was telling me about a curry dish she was having. I told her that I wasn’t sure if I was “into” curry, despite having a little jar of the dried spice in my kitchen, and she followed by spouting out a few non-traditional ways I could use it.

Spoiler alert: one of said suggestions was curry chicken salad.

To keep this chicken salad slender, I nixed the mayo and substituted fat free Greek yogurt. To add some extra pizazz (beyond the curry), I incorporated mango, walnuts, ginger, and cinnamon. If you’ve got raisins, carrots, or grapes on hand, throw those in too!

I tend to be the banana buyer of the household, which grants me the responsibility of deciding how many the four of us will need and when. Needless to say, I don’t always get it right. Sometimes we all walk out of the house Monday morning with half green bananas in hand, other times we’ll end up with a bunch of rapidly browning ones threatening to disintegrate on our counter come Saturday morning.This week we faced the latter situation. I woke today and began searching online for what to do with overly-ripened bananas besides your run-of-the-mill bread.

Here’s what I came up with.

I was going to call these oatmeal cookies, but they’re not. Then I was going to call them granola bites, but that wasn’t quite right either. Then one of my roommates took her first bite and exclaimed, “Yum! These are likes breakfast cookies! They’d be so good with peanut butter in the morning!” Bing-O.

So, Slender Students, I present to you: Banana Blueberry Walnut Breakfast Cookies. They’d be so good with peanut butter in the morning.

Disclaimer: I’m not trying to insult your intelligence with this recipe.In fact, I’m not even sure if this earns the title of recipe as it’s only 3 ingredients and the sole instruction is to mix stuff together.

When I first concocted this little dish, I had no intention of putting it on the blog. I put the tuna salad between two slices of freshly baked whole wheat bread from HEB, posted a picture of it on Instagram, and typed up the “recipe” in the caption. I really thought it would end there.

And then I started craving it for lunch on a daily basis. And then I started making it on the reg. And then I posted another picture of it on Instagram, but only after I’d had the forethought to snap a few photos on my DSLR for the blog first. And now here we are.

So while most of you don’t need a full-fledged blog post to get a handle on this recipe, I felt like I was doing a disservice to my readers if I didn’t share this stupidly simple, delicious, and healthy lunch idea.

Everyday I get home from work around 5:15 and I’m hit with a wicked case of the hangries.

Honestly, I don’t have any problem sitting down to dinner around 5:45 pm like a geriatric. The thing is, it leaves me feeling hungry for a fourth meal around 8:30 and that’s just no bueno. There’s not much about having two dinners that screams slender.

So, like I said, I’m going through something. Fortunately, I’ve found a new favorite way to quell the hunger. Something light and slender, but just enough to satisfy the hunger and urge to munch.

Simple enough, right? A spoonful of peach salsa, a spoonful of tomatillo salsa, and a dollop of (spicy avocado) hummus with carrots and celery for dipping. Pro tip: you don’t need to arrange your veggies in a sundial shape to eat this snack.